Laminate Wood Radio Refurbish

Sorry, I did not take a before picture. This is a wood laminate veneer Airline radio that I inherited from my grandmother. It had been in the basement and had some water spotting/damage. I used some gentle sanding along with Formby’s wood re finisher to bring it back to life. Also used some gold paint and poly to rejuvenate the knobs and replaced to torn speaker screen. It is a tube type radio and my dad was able to set me up with several replacement sets of tubes, so I hope to have it running for many years.

Very nice restore. Old radios like this have a fairly $trong following in the collectors community. So don’t give it away if you decide not to keep it as a heirloom in your family.

I do love old radios that are known as “boat-anchors” or “Radios that glow in the dark” in the ham radio community.

Just FYI: If you should ever hear buzzing similar to what a motorboat sounds like, you will most likely need to “recap” the radio or aka replace the power capacitors. Many old radios used paper types that will dry out over the decades and slowly fail. Common problem with older tube sets.

It’s generally not hard to do, but it takes knowing what the caps were originally rated at, possibly the polarity and knowing how to solder in the replacements. Most likely to solder lugs “point to point” style construction in a metal chassis as this era was well before PC boards I suspect.

If your dad was able to set you up with several sets of tubes, I bet he’d be the one to ask about any other restoration steps to get it sounding again as it came out of the factory.

What a beautiful restore PJ…When I saw this picture memories came flooding back of the family, my parents, older brother, my Aunt and myself all sitting in the lounge room after Sunday biner listening the a Sunday night program called Play House Theater…hahaha good old family valued memories. Great job PJ thanks for sharing…